Menu

Thursday, February 10, 2011

There appears to be a long running blind spot concerning the Afrikaans speaking population of the Western Cape as some authors & commentators have routinely conflated them with the Boer population of the Cape frontier. Discussions on the Great Trek by those authors therefore refer to an amorphous Afrikaner group thereby overshadowing the actual Boer population which went on the Great Trek. Thereby openly insinuating that the Great Trek was something "only a minority of Afrikaners" engaged in when in reality the bulk of the Boer people engaged in it & very few actual Cape Dutch did. The most most egregious example of this blind spot was demonstrated by an Anglo-Boer War era author from France whose misunderstanding was so extreme that he actually erroneously thought that most "Boers" remained behind at the Cape during the Great Trek simply because most of the Afrikaans speaking population - the Cape Dutch population - remained. The author in question: Yves Guyot wrote the following.

[ Ancestors of the Boers had more than once acted in a similar manner towards the Dutch East India Company when dissatisfied with their administration, and unwilling to pay their taxes. But Pro-Boers have a curious habit of magnifying things. One would imagine, to hear them speak, that every Boer in the Cape had packed wife, children, and goods into ox-wagons and had trekked north. As a matter of fact, the greater proportion remained behind, and their descendants formed the majority of the 376,000 whites enumerated in the census of 1891. The Great Trek was really composed of various detachments which started one after another in 1836. Statistics of the numbers of trekkers vary from 5,000 to 10,000. ]

The "greater proportion" of the Afrikaans speakers he was referring to were in fact the Cape Dutch [ ie: non-Boer ] population of the Western Cape who have always outnumbered the Boer population which developed on the Cape frontier. [ circa 1679 - 1735 ] Therefore his devise of trying to imply that most "Boers" did not go on the Great Trek falls flat & underscores his total misunderstanding over who the greater proportion of the Afrikaans speaking folks at the Cape were because most of them have never ascribed to the independence outlook of the Boer population of the frontier nor saw themselves as Boers. Therefore his feeble attempt at implying that the Boers who trekked somehow represented a "marginal" or "minority" decision [ as he views the Afrikaans speakers as one monolithic group when in reality the Boers developed into a separate group away from & distinct from the Cape Dutch ] does great damage to the reality that the bulk of the Boer population [ if not even most ] were driven to trek.

Therefore Guyot was employing a technique which is still commonly used to marginalize the aspirations of the Boer people by implying that they are simply "a minority" within a larger language based whole who "must respect the majority decision" of the artificial larger whole & accept the decisions of the establishment Afrikaner leadership & "abandon" their centuries long struggle for Boer self determination.

This glaring misconception & the accompanying blind spot to the larger Cape Dutch population is also erroneously asserted & propagated in books such as The White Tribe of Africa [ authored by a British BBC journalist who specifically sought out & largely parroted an Afrikaner Broederbond tinged perspective ] most notable in the incorrect assertion within the line: [ One hundred and fifty years ago, the Boers had nothing but a determination to escape from those who prevented them from living as they wished. Today their descendents control the whole of South Africa. ] Which of course is impossible & a false claim because the Boers are no more than 40 % of the entire White Afrikaans speaking population. How could they control "the whole of South Africa" when they did not even control the whole of the Afrikaner designation. The macro Afrikaner group which inherited control of South Africa was mainly of Cape Dutch descent as the Boer segment was the smaller portion. The Cape Dutch descendents make up at least 60 - 65 % of the White Afrikaans speaking population ergo when the White Afrikaans speakers inherited the macro State of South Africa: the Boer segment could not possibly have controlled "the whole of South Africa" as they were naturally outnumbered by the Cape Dutch originated Afrikaners whose votes carried more weight. Cape Dutch, English speakers & Boers all had access to the vote under South Africa ergo the Boer segment did not have the numerical strength to take control of South Africa via the electoral process. Why do some authors purposely omit the Cape Dutch ancestors of the Afrikaner named group? Are they simply ignorant of them? Are they simply influenced by Afrikaner Broederbond propaganda? Did the Cape Dutch descended Afrikaners suddenly die out? Of course not. So why are the Cape Dutch segment curiously rarely mentioned? The Cape Dutch were not an invisible people as they had in fact named the Afrikaans language as such & started the first Afrikaans language based newspaper. One would think that this act would have put them on the map. Though they did so under the Afrikaner designation thereby obscuring the Cape Dutch roots. In fact the Boer population were the ones dying out as per the 50 % loss of their children in the concentration camps during the second Anglo-Boer War. Thereby giving the Cape Dutch an even greater population momentum within the Afrikaner designation. Therefore it is mathematically impossible for Boers to have controlled the WHOLE of South Africa as they would only have held sway within the regions they dominated numerically via the electorate though tragically under Afrikaner political domination.

This misunderstanding still shows up in present times. As an example: when the host of the African Crisis website read a book noting that there were more Afrikaans speakers at the Cape during the Anglo-Boer War. He then outrageously & erroneously proclaimed: "I read that there were more 'Boers' in the Western Cape than there were in the Boer Republics. "! Which of course is totally wrong & demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of who the Boer people are & who the Afrikaans speaking population at the Western Cape were / are. While some Boers of the Cape frontier remained behind during the Great Trek - the vast majority of the Cape Afrikaans speaking population are of course the Cape Dutch of the Western Cape. This misunderstanding is compounded further as many do not even know that the Great Trek was from the eastern Cape where the Boer population lived & not from the Western Cape of the Cape Dutch. This misunderstanding was typified when an American website host erroneously thought that the Great Trek was from Cape Town [ probably confusing the re-enactment which occurred during the centennial & started from Cape Town ] when the fact of the matter is that the Great Trek was virtually exclusively from the north eastern Cape frontier from towns like: Cradock / Uitenhage / Grahamstown / Swellendam / Somerset East / Graaff-Reniet etc. There were around 10 000 Boers at most who went on the Great Trek out of a total Cape Afrikaans speaking population of at least 30 000 - 40 000. The vast majority of the 30 000 - 40 000 Afrikaans speakers were the Western Cape based Cape Dutch.

The population statistics for the late 19th cent show that there were around 400 000 White inhabitants at the Cape - with the vast majority of the Afrikaans speakers being from the Cape Dutch population. While there were never more than 250 000 to 300 000 Boers at most prior to the second Anglo-Boer War thereby demonstrating as plain as day that the erroneous notion that Boer desendents could have governed South Africa alone by themselves is mathematically impossible & totally disregards the numerically larger Cape Dutch population group.

This regrettable misunderstanding & conflation got perpetuated further as the African Crisis website host Jan Lamprecht misinformed the large listening audience of the Jeff Rense radio program on April 5 of 2010 when he erroneously stated ad nauseum that the Boer Republics were established by the "Afrikaners" [ when the Afrikaners of the time were in fact not even yet trying to co-opt the Boers via the Afrikaner Bond ] when in fact the Cape Dutch Afrikaners have NEVER wanted freedom or independence & have NEVER established any republics until 1961 when they turned the Union of South Africa into the nominal Republic of South Africa largely as a result of Boer population support via the national referendum on the topic. Then during the same broadcast he made the most outrageous assertion when he claimed that the National Party rose to power as a result of a "Boer conspiracy"! I kid you not. While the rise of the National Party could be ascribed as having been the result of an Afrikaner Broederbond conspiracy - the fact that Lamprecht attempts to shift blame ENTIRELY on then largely impoverished & working class Boer people [ who are the SMALLER segment of the White Afrikaans speaking population ] & TOTALLY OMITTED MENTIONING the role of the Afrikaners [ who are mostly of Cape Dutch origin ] spoke volumes / betrays ignorance & would suggest an anti-Boer agenda at worst. Because he has been informed in the past but continues to peddle erroneous assertions.

Why does he speak of "Afrikaner Republics" when the Afrikaners of the era were OPPOSED to the Great Trek of the Boers? Why does he speak about a "Boer conspiracy" when the Afrikaners engaged in said "conspiracy" [ his term ] would be of Cape Dutch origin as well? He could have called it accurately an "Afrikaner conspiracy" but he chose to call it a "Boer conspiracy". The term Afrikaner was used when he was talking about Boers & the term Boer was used when he was taking about Afrikaners. This is rather curious. While there were certainly a number of Boer descendents [ now part of the Afrikaner coalition & only identifying themselves as Afrikaners ] who participated in the rise of the National Party with some also recruited into the Broederbond - it would certainly be a total distortion & an outright lie to blame the Boer people for engaging in a "conspiracy" when the vast majority of the Afrikaners were descended from the Cape Dutch population & thus not were not even from the Boer population.

The Boer people were under the thumb of the Afrikaners & blaming Boers exclusively for the actions of the Afrikaners neglects the role of the larger & dominant Afrikaans speaking population group. Furthermore the driving force behind the "conspiracy" was not even the average Afrikaner but rather the Afrikaner Broederbond which was a then semi secret society which was unknown to most Boers & Afrikaners. But Lamprecht blames an entire ethnic group for the actions of a very small & secretive group. The two most notable drivers of the rise of the National Party were D F Malan & Hendrik Verwoerd. Both not from the Boer people. [ Malan was from the Cape Dutch & Verwoerd was a naturalized Afrikaner originally from Holland. ] Henning Klopper who was one of the founders of the Broederbond might have been of Boer descent BUT he was totally initiated into viewing himself as an Afrikaner via the speeches of JBM Hertzog & thus on board with the Afrikaner teleocratic agenda to work within macro State to take it over for the bulk of the Afrikaans speakers [ which Hertzog actually opposed as he wanted to promote a bi-lingual coalition via "English Afrikaners" working together with "Afrikaans Afrikaners" ] & the Afrikaner Broederbond in particular. Lamprecht also gave a dangerous false impression when he spoke of Terre'Blanche as being the only one who "stood up" to be counted while totally neglecting the much longer role that Robert van Tonder played as he left the National Party in 1961 to defend the Boer people & to advocate for the restoration of the Boer Republics. The political outlook of Robert van Tonder would later play a significant role in the political outlook of Eugene Terre'Blanche - particularly when Terre'Blanche got on board with the Boer freedom struggle & began to call for the restoration of the Boer Republics by 1985 due to the influence of van Tonder. Therefore ignoring the role of Robert van Tonder was also curious. Van Tonder had to endure a lot more abuse / threats & violence than Terre'Blanche did in the defense of his people yet nary of word.

Another curious thing about Lamprecht was when he noted on his website that he could not identify most of the Boer flags used during the Boer Protest March of March 2006. How can someone who can not even identify various Boer flags let alone not even admit that the Boers are not Afrikaners [ as the Boers are from the Cape frontier not the Western Cape ] - be taken so seriously on the Jeff Rense Radio Program concerning the history of the Boer people? One of the most outrageous lies was when he distorted a quote when he claimed that Eugene Terre'Blanche said that: "an Afrikaner just wants to be an Afrikaner". When in reality what he said was & what the actual quote was: "A Boer just wants to be a Boer". While Terre'Blanche also used to sometimes erroneously refer to himself as an Afrikaner at times due to his conditioning - he used the term Boer in that quote & not Afrikaner. There is no ethnicity of Afrikaner [ it is a continental derived term like American which also encompasses multiple ethnic groups ] as it was & is an umbrella term used to describe anyone whose home language was Afrikaans. While the Boers are a minority within the Afrikaner designation.

The newly adopted Afrikaner flag also plays into the Afrikaner domination of the Boer Nation as they purposely hijack Boer flags & attach them within an Afrikaner colour scheme dating back to the Prince Flag as used by the tyrant Jan van Riebeeck: the original oppressor of the ancestors of the Boer people at the Cape. The flag no doubt aims at co-opting the Boer people into the Afrikaner camp so that any Boer Republican secessionist movement is neutralized because the Afrikaner leadership is adamantly opposed to the restoration of the Boer Republics which will no doubt be the natural result of an authentic Boer independence movement.

This drastic misunderstanding causes great damage & harm to the actual Boer people because the Afrikaner establishment has always worked AGAINST them denying them their independence & the conflation of the Boer with the Afrikaner makes the Boers responsible & a scapegoat for actions taken & driven mainly by ANOTHER ethnic group. This is why one often hears the ignorant lament & harmful straw man argument of: "the Boers should have created a homeland for themselves when 'they' were still in power" because those who utter such a sentiment betray their total lack of knowledge of the situation & who the actual Boer people are. There were Boers struggling to "create a homeland for themselves" all throughout the 20th cent but they were prevented & stopped by the Afrikaner establishment. The very regime that the ignoramuses erroneously believe were "Boers who should have created a homeland for themselves". Mind you this is the same Afrikaner establishment that many folks insist that the Boers must stand with in the name of "unity" for reasons that entirely escape one because so long as the Boers stand with the establishment Afrikaners so long will their long running independence movement get stalled. While there were numerous folks of Boer descent part of the past regimes - one must remember that they had long since been conditioned to view themselves as Afrikaners & many rejected the Boer Nation & therefore did not work on even trying to accommodate Boer self determination.

There are folks who try to deny the Boers their own cultural identity asserting that they should fold themselves into - or be assimilated into the Afrikaners but I have never heard anyone make the same argument & claim that the Acadians should do the same & fold into the French Canadians & Quebecois because Boer identity should be as respected as Acadian identity is in Canada. Someone on another website once commented that Boers who are proud of their culture & display their historical Boer Republican flags are "extremists" yet once again I never hear the same argument put forward against Acadians who are proud of their distinct culture & display their own distinct Acadian flag.

The fact of the matter is that so long as this persistent blind spot & lack of insight continues - the actual Boer people will be damaged / maligned as "extremists" / misrepresented / accused & marginalized under the Afrikaners simply because a larger uninsightful public has been conditioned to view all Afrikaans speakers as a mythological monolithic block due to the Afrikaner Broederbond propaganda of the past & the curious omission of the larger Cape Dutch population by some authors whose tragic myopic misunderstanding only sees Boer ancestors of the Afrikaners thus negating & ignoring the larger Cape Dutch population.

21
Opinion(s):

The map on the left is the Trekboer migration pattern from the late 1600s into the 1700s. The map on the right is the Great Trek migration pattern demonstrating that the Great Trek was taken by the Boer population of the frontier. The Boer people are obscured when they are lumped in with the bulk of the Afrikaners & accused of being "a minority of radicals" simply due to a profound misunderstanding because the fact of the matter is the Boers developed as a distinct people from the Cape Dutch & thus the Boers developed an inherent anti-colonial & independence outlook which is often ridiculed & not well understood or respected by those who erroneously subscribe to the false notion that the Boers are just an "extremist breakaway group who should respect the majority decision" of the larger Afrikaner population group. This misunderstanding opens up the door for anti-Boer propagandists like Guyot [ & others ] to imply that the Boers' aspirations are not as important as the bulk of the Afrikaners' as they are erroneously perceived or asserted by these propagandists as not being an authentic entity on their own with the inherent right to national self determination.

Ja... And when the so-called Voortrekkers of the Great Trek got to where they were hoping to settle for their new lives in what is today the South Eastern Free State, who's forefathers did they find already farming there?

Ja. Mine. There is still an ongoing fight in the region between two families as to who's family "actually" got there first... Personally I don't care.

The Boers aspirations are espoused by the vast MAJORITY (if not all) the Boer people. The only way to change this legitimate claim into an illegitimate one is to lump the Boers into the much larger Afrikaner designation. This has been done for 100 years by the Broederbond and Afrikanerbond and other organisations with devestating effect.

Their anti Boer Patriot propaganda has been so successful that there are even Boers who consider themselves to be Afrikaners. I know... I was one of them. The traditions and history and struggles of the Boer Nation have been usurped by the Afrikaner and sold to the world as their own history - but, as you say, nothing could be further from the truth.

If the Afrikaner is a Boer, why did they not rise up in the Cape and give us a little assistance during the second English war?

The answer is simple. An Afrikaner is NOT a Boer, and a Boer is NOT an Afrikaner. While they share a common language, even in that there are nuances and differences between the what the Afrikaners regard as "suiwer" and how the Boers speak.

Keep up the good work Ron... It is surely not wasted. No TRUTH can ever be killed.

Thanks for the positive comments. The truth is coming out but the truth was already out. Just that too few try to look past the establishment propaganda. I get prompted to post on the topic whenever I see & hear someone misrepresenting or just getting plain confused on the topic.

Listening to the Rense broadcast was excruciating because I wish I could have called in or something just to set the record straight. I sent an e-mail to Jeff Rense [ quite a few times ] but it was not acknowledged or read.

The Boer's dialect. Indeed I noticed that historians have classified it as Eastern Border Afrikaans named after the region were it developed.

The usurpation of the Boers by the Afrikaners is incredible & quite far reaching because we often hear how the "Afrikaners" went on the Great Trek when in reality is was the Boers that did. Those maps should be shown to anyone who would dispute this fact.

Frank of The Right Perspective radio program once said that he would be open to host a debate on his program about this topic.

Ron with regards to African Crisis and Jan Lamprecht you have to understand the broader context of what is going on. In his head he knows for a fact that the Afrikaners are stealing the history of the Boers. There is a concerted effort to make away with the division as the history of the Afrikaners will eventually catch up with them.

Go back to Codesa when the Boers wanted to represent themselves at the talks and FW De Klerk objected to the idea. The reason being as he stated at the time was that if the Boers represented themselves then what about people such as him - Afrikaners?

That alone shines the light on one fact you cannot make away with being that the Boers are the only whites in South Africa with a historical claim to land and the Afrikaners are trying to wrestle this away from them.

Out of curiousity from a man not of SA. It seems there is a will to set the record straight among you,and I can understand the inflamed passion and rightful anger when people misunderstand your culture and your History. There is my question did the church play a role in the misconception that the Boers and Afrikaaners are the same?

To Anon. Indeed. The Church played a MAJOR role in conflating the two identities / peoples along with the schools / the media & of course the politicians. One of the first places that Boers were indoctrinated into a new identity was in the churches [ & schools ] by folks referring to themselves as Afrikaners.

Jim Beam: For a long time I was not certain if Lamprecht was simply ignorant or was in fact deliberately obscuring the two identities / peoples but after listening to him during his April 2010 appearance on the Jeff Rense radio program - it appears quite convincing that he is indeed deliberately confusing the two identities / peoples. It was a cumulative realization as the interview progressed because while I was uncomfortable in hearing him talk about "Afrikaner" Republics I tried to convince myself that he was just using standard ignorance concerning the topic.

Then he started talking about a "Boer conspiracy" in an era when Boers had "officially ceased to exist" [ as per the Afrikaner ascension & claim to everything pertaining to Afrikaans peoples ] & were a minority within the actual Afrikaners who carried out said "conspiracy". I wanted to shout at that point.

But what really sent my alarm bells off & what finally pushed me to the realization that he was deliberately confusing the two identities / peoples was when he deliberately misquoted Terre'Blanche & substituted the word Boer for Afrikaner. His erroneous assertion that Terre'Blance was the "only person to stand up to be counted" further cemented my realization because anyone who knows anything about this topic would now that Robert van Tonder was doing so for DECADES & was in fact a major influence on Terre'Blance. Lamprecht can not even claim ignorance on this as he has been repeatedly informed about this topic not just tepidly from myself but by some other folks as well.

There was also the bizarre & telling exchange between the Right Perspective & he in 2007 wherein he appeared to state that he "saw no evidence" of the existence Boers even though he referred to Boers at least once - though also interchangeably more often using the term Afrikaner.

Though the phrase "Afrikaner Republics" is not too standard as people generally talk about & acknowledge Boer Republics so that was my first red flag but since I sometimes see & hear others [ usually Westerners & not South Africans ] use the inaccurate phrase: I opted to cut him a break. But then he made those other less forgiving statements which appears to have gone beyond simple errors & into the world of molding public perception.

Concerning the issue that the Boers are not the only Caucasian group with historical claim to land in Southern Africa: indeed as the Afrikaners could certainly make a valid claim to the Western Cape [ along with Cape Coloureds & Cape Malays ] but the interesting thing is that the Afrikaners generally do not make any such exclusive claims to land as they buy & large support the macro State structure & agree to participate within it seeking to exercise their rights within it as minority group while the Boer people [ particularly those striving for authentic self determination ] on the other hand tend to reject the concept that they are a "minority" people part of a macro State [ that they often rightly see as illegitimate ] as the Boers tend to see themselves as a nation [ also as a pre Colonial people which was in fact homegrown in Africa ] which has been Colonized by various forces & are under suzerainty & macro State neo Colonial domination.

Furthermore it should be pointed out that the Boers have legal & historical precedence to land claim as they founded numerous Boer Republics of which at least two were internationally recognized & embassies were established within them & abroad. The Boer Republics were reversed via an act of war & not from an authentic Boer desire to become incorporated into the British Empire's macro State structure. The Cape Dutch descended Afrikaners might have historical precedent on their side should they ever try to claim at least a portion of the Western Cape but they never historically tried to do so & have never had a freedom struggle of their own as they were generally content with the Dutch & later British Colonial power.

I have often noted that the Afrikaners are certainly free to pursue a freedom / self determination struggle of their own [ so long as they do not use it as an excuse to co-opt the Boers & prevent them from pursuing their CENTURIES long struggle for self determination ] but one sees comparatively little interest among them for such as they often regard such pursuits as "extremist" or radical.

This is most likely why the Cape Independence Movement will never get anywhere because the bulk of the population there are not likely to support an ideology that they view as extreme or radical & are not as enthusiastic about the notion of seceding from the macro South African State structure as most Boer Republicans are. There are of course a number of exceptions to this general view though but not nearly enough to register an effective impact towards the viable execution Cape independence or secession.

That is why it would be dangerous for the Boers to continue with the association with the larger Afrikaner community because it naturally dilutes their inherent strength towards independence. The elite know this which is why they propagate the erroneous notion of a "single" Afrikaner Nation when in reality the Boer Nation is simply under the suzerainty of the Afrikaners & often the direction of the Afrikaner establishment. Dismissing the Boers as a distinct people buys the Afrikaners time to try to manipulate the system for their own survival within the macro State dispensation.

The Cape was never a Republic. It was a colony - nothing more. The Coloureds could lay a claim for it based on being the indigenous tribe of the Cape but not the Cape Malay which is grouped into the term. The Afrikaners could not lay a claim as it was British territory.

Lamprecht is like De Klerk. They dont know where they will fit in. A Canton system will at least solve some of the issues where people can follow their own traditions and culture. Just as an aside, the Zulus' never wanted into this multiculti hellhole either but they where forced in at the last minute.

sadly, the canton system will never happen, the ANC will simply never allow it. Sorry to be negative about it, and I say it as someone who thinks it will solve many problems AND as a supporter of Cape independence.

What you say about the Zulus echoes what I have been repeatedly told by South Africans, that the Zulus were, back in the day, and still are keen on having their own territory.

Unless there is a major change in the power structure in SA, or a civil war (which is not unthinkable), the trend will be towards greater centralisation followed by the ruin of the country.

As for Boer independence, on this my opinion is the same, good luck to them in their struggle, but as for separating Boer from Afrikaner, well, good luck with that, too. Co-opted they may have been, but I often wonder how active was their resistance to National Party rule, or were they happy enough to be carried along as part of the majority..

How many were too happy to be carried along National Party / Afrikanerbond / Broederbond rule?

You have to view the Boer / Afrikaner distinction like Bavarians / Germans. Go and tell a Bavarian that he is just German, and you're most likely to get an earful. Their heritage is quite separate and unique in relation to Germany as we know it today.

Just like the French speaking Quebecois have a history / culture which is distinct & unique from the bulk of Canadians even though the are also Canadians & are in fact the original Canadians. The term Canadien [ French spelling - later Anglicized to Canadian ] was originally applied to the French Colonists of New France [ modern Quebec ] before it was usurped by later arriving British Colonists. The usurpation & amorphous nature of cultural terms happens all over the world.

Jim Beam. True: the fact that the Cape was never a republic [ as the Cape Dutch never wanted break from Colonial rule ] will make it harder for Cape Dutch Afrikaners to try to claim it but they have one thing going for them which is that they occupied the region before the Bantus started arriving long term in the 19th cent. The Cape Malays were indeed often lumped under the Coloured designation but they are a distinct group from the larger Coloured population just as the Boers are distinct from the larger Afrikaner population.

The Cape was a Dutch Colony of sorts [ administered by the Dutch East India Co.] before the British took it over. Another tricky thing for the local Afrikaners there to face is the fact that they were not even calling themselves as such or even had a national consciousness about themselves until the latter half of the 19th cent. At a time when the Boers had long since had a national consciousness about themselves & were already mainly living in independent republics. Therefore another problem for Boers being told that they are Afrikaners is that it forces the longer national identity of the Boers to yield to & subsume into the SHORTER & more incomplete & downright checkered national identity of the Afrikaners. [ Though Broederbonder historians often made up for this by appropriating Boer history & heritage retroactively. ] The Boer people were long since renown as Boers long before the Cape Dutch started appropriating the amorphous term Afrikaner to describe themselves [ circa 1875 ] then later impose it onto the Boers & try to rewrite history in order to conform to an Afrikaner usurpation of the Boer Nation.

There was a Boer-Zulu alliance [ also under the brief larger alliance of COSAG ] in early 1994 when there was a plan to declare the Western Transvaal independent at the same time as Kwa Zulu. But the town councils backed out at the last minute in the region in question & the IFP later registered to participate in the general elections. Out of all of South Africa's numerous peoples: the Boers & the Zulus probably have strongest self aware national identities & the strongest desire for independence / self government.

Viking. There were of course some notable Boers like Robert van Tonder who was active against the National Party & was calling for the restoration of the Boer Republics since 1961 but due to the fact that most Boers were conditioned to viewing themselves as Afrikaners & considering the strong control the establishment had over differing information: it is not a surprise that there were not too many more. The re-writing of history & suppression of information by the Broederbond was the cornerstone to their usurpation & Boer resistance was mainly driven underground. Robert van Tonder tried to get his message out via his illegal printing press & is credited with at least a couple of books. He started his own political party when it was apparent that the other established political parties were not interested in addressing Boer self government.

Correct, the Bavarians don't like being called German.You will also note that they are ruled by a regional party the CSU (Christian Social Union) and they believe in regional autonomy and are also rather Eurosceptic.

@Viking

The Canton system will come, I assure you - just be patient.

The battle lines are going to be interesting. This is not black vs white as some websites like to make it out to be. This is about money and control and sooner or later the bridge holding all the greedy twats together will collapse.

I think it's less about being patient and more about trying to bring in the system before it's too late. Simply, the migration from other provinces to the W.Cape and Gauteng is simply flooding those areas with non-indigenous populations who will simply out-vote any attempts to isolate them. The alternative will be massive repatriations, and nobody can stomach that.

@Islandshark

I can understand that analogy. From what I read from Ron and others, an actual ethnic Boer has somewhat less "European" blood than the Afrikaner. I'm not sure of the truth of this, though..

Viking. A book published in 1971 by a one J A Heese on the ancestors of the White Afrikaans population in general asserted that the general White Afrikaans population was about 7 % descended from Indian / Malay & Khoi origins. Considering that this absorption happened quite early on [ generally in the 17th cent ] it would stand to reason that these roots would be part of both Cape Dutch & Boer population groups. The bulk of the non-European roots are Asian & Indian in particular.

A one André van Rensburg noted within his research page concerning his own ancestry in particular that a GFC de Bruyn "used a different form of calculation and his results were: Dutch 34.1%, German 29.2%, French 24.7%, British 0.3%, Other European nations 2.4%, Non European 5.4%".

There are added complexities when factoring in the fact that the Dutch designation was applied to Frisians too & the fact that a lot of later arriving Germans settled straight to the northeastern Cape where the Boers developed.